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THOITOHTS 
STEVElSrSON" 



WORDS OF HOPE 
FROM A HOPEFUL 
MAN, COMPILED BY 
HAL W. TROVILLION 



PRIVATELY PRINTED 
NEW YEARS A. D. MDCCCCVIH 



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THOUCS-HTS 
STE3VH3KrS02Sr 



WORDS OF HOPE 
FROM A HOPEFUL 
MAN, COMPILED BY 
HAL W TROVILLION. 



PRIVATELY PRINTED 
NEW YEARS A. D. MDCCCCVllI 

MBRRIH, - . . . ILLINOIS 






^ 



FORE WORD 



A. new year has come again and with 
it clings still that pleasant custom of 
wishing well our friends and bidding 
them Godspeed for another twelve- 
month. But however hopeful and 
light-hearted we may set out upon the 
Journey, there are sure to come times 
when we shall be glad to hear words 
of cheer and encouragement that will 
strengthen us to keep up the fight. 
To serve such a mission as this to my 
friends, is my only purpose In prepar- 
ing this little brochure. In this great, 
big, busy world so occupied with other 
things, and some days so chilly and 
selfish, we all but lose the very car- 
dinal points of a happy and contented 
life. As Wordsworth has told us 

"The world is too much with 

us, late and soon. 
Getting and spending, we lay 

waste to our powers." 

In these few selected thoughts of the 
ever hopeful Stevenson, I trust there 
will be found sufficient consolation 
during the cloudy days to carry the 
most despondent far into the land of 
clear skies and sunshine 



/^ 



^^O^TZ^T/Oy/ 



/|| HE future is nothing; 
^^ but the past is my- 
self, my own history, the 
seed of my pre sent 
thoughts, the mould of 
my present disposition. 
It is not in vain that I re- 
turn to the nothings of my 
childhood; for every one 
of them has left some 
stamp upon me or put 
some fetter on my boasted 
free will. In the past is 
my present fate; and in 
the past, also, is my real 
life. 

"A Retrospect" 



/il HE day returns and 
^^ brings U3 the petty 
round of irritating con- 
cerns and duties. Help 
us to play the man, help 
us to perform them with 
laughter and kind faces, 
let cheerfulness abound 
with industry. Give us to 
go blithely on our busi- 
ness all this day, bring us 
to our resting beds weary 
and content and un-dis- 
honored, and grant ua in 
the end the gift of sleep. 

"Fra)f«rs" 



jTrJUR guard is relieved; 
VJ^ the service of the day 
is over, and the hour come 
to rest. We resign into 
Thy hands our sleeping 
bodies, our cold hearths 
and open doors. Give us 
to awake with smiles, 
give us to labour smiling. 
As the sun returns in the 
east, so let our patience 
be renewed with dawn; as 
the sun lightens the world, 
so let our loving-kindness 
make bright this house of 
our habitation. 

"Prayen" 



J|IN his own life, then, a 
^ nian is not to expect 
happiness, only to profit 
by it gladly when it shall 
arise; he is on duty here; 
he knows not how or why, 
and does not need to know; 
be knows not for what 
hire, and must not ask. 
Somehow or other, though 
he does not know what 
goodness is, he must try 
to be good: somehow^ or 
other, though he cannot 
tell what will do it, he 
must try to give happiness 
to others. 

"A Christmas Sermon" 



A HAPPY man or wo- 
man is a better thing 
to find than a tive-pound 
note. He or she is a 
radiating focus of good- 
will; and their entrance 
into a room is as though 
another candle had been 
lighted. We need not 
care whether they could 
prove the forty-seventh 
proposition! They do a 
better thing than that, 
they practically demon- 
strate the great theorem 
of the liveableness of life. 

"An Apology jor Idlers"" 



TTT O be honest, to be kind, 
V^ to earn a little and to 
spend a little less, to make 
upon the whole a family 
happier for his presence, 
to renounce when that 
shall be necessary and not 
to be embittered, to keep a 
few friends, but these 
without capitulation — 
above all, on the same 
grim conditions, to keep 
friends with himself — here 
is a task for all that a man 
has of fortitude and 
delicacy. 

"A Christmas Sermon'' 



pip ACH man shou 1 d 
^^f learn what is within 
him, that he may strive to 
mend * * * * , it can 
never be wrong to tell him 
the truth; for, in his dis- 
putable state, weaving as 
he goes his theory of life, 
steering himself, cheering 
or reproving others, all 
facts are of the first im- 
portance to his conduct: 
and even if a fact shall 
discourage or corrupt him, 
it is still best that he 
should know it; for it is in 
this world as it is, and 
not in a world made eas^" 
\>y educational suppres- 
sion, that he must win 
his w^ay to shame or glory. 

''The Morality of the 
Profession of Letters' ^ 



^d^OOK back hozj. Jor a moment, on 
%W_\ your own brief experience of life; 
^^ and although yuu lived it feelingly 
in your oivn person, and had eve>y step of 
conduct burned in by pains and joys upon 
your memory, tell me what definite lesson 
does experience hand on from youth to 
manhood, or from both to age f The settled 
tenor whtchfirst strikes the eye is btit the 
shadow of a delusion. This is gone; that 
never truly was; and you yourself are al- 
tered beyond recognition . Times and men 
and circumstances chinge about your 
changing character, with a speed of which 
no earthly hurrican affords an image. 
IVhat was the best yesterday, is it still the 
best in this changed theatre of a tomorrow? 
Will your own past truly guide yoti in 
your own violent and unexpected future? 
And if this be questionable, with what 
humble, with what hopeless eyes should we 
not 7vatch other men driving beside us on 
their unknoivn careers, seeing with unlike 
eyes, impelled by diffeient gales, doing and 
suffering in another sphere ofthingsf 

— "Lq^ Morals.'' 



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